County recycling center opens

ADRIAN — After years of plan revisions and delays, the opening of a Lenawee County recycling center was marked with a ribbon-cutting ceremony Wednesday.

“All of those standing behind me did a great deal to bring this to a conclusion,” said Robert Knoblauch before snipping a red ribbon before a group of people at the collection site. Knoblauch is chairman of a committee that oversees the county’s solid waste department.

The project has gone through several planning phases, and several obstacles were overcome in the past two years, he said.

“We persevered and today we have this drop-off station,” Knoblauch said. “We’re all very proud of what we’ve been able to accomplish. It took a long time.”

The drive-through collection site is at Race and River streets on property the county purchased several years ago from Bales Inc. The $200,000 project involved building an embankment and paved driveway to allow recyclers to pull up to automatic compactors. Material is compressed in bins connected to the compactors, turning on automatically after doors are opened and closed five times.

Several county commissioners expressed satisfaction with the project during a physical resources committee meeting on Monday.

“I think it’s going to be very good for the community,” said commissioner Cletus Smith, R-Madison Twp.

The site actually opened Nov. 26 and has been operating without any significant problems, said Lenawee County Administrator Martin Marshall. The fenced collection site is open from 7 a.m. to 7 p.m. daily except for Christmas Eve, Christmas Day, New Year’s Eve, New Year’s Day and Thanksgiving.

One compactor is for paper and cardboard materials, and a second is designated for plastic, metal and glass material.

Opening of the center in Adrian has triggered a number of telephone calls from people asking if the county’s Saturday morning recycling program at several rural sites has ended, said Diana Schroeder, the solid waste department’s administrative clerk.

The solid waste committee voted Wednesday to halt the rural recycling collection in Rome Township after this month due to low participation.

Collections at Devils Lake, near Loch Erin and in Macon are to end when county satellite collection sites are established to replace them.

“I think everybody on the committee wants that sooner rather than later,” Knoblauch said.

“We do want to shut down the rural sites that we are operating now on Saturday mornings and have probably three rural sites that would operate similar to what we have now in Adrian,” Knoblauch said. The plan is to have one automatic compactor at each satellite site. They are to be operated in partnerships with local communities.

Clinton Township is a potential location for a satellite site. Township supervisor William Zimmerman said Wednesday an unmanned collection center the township has sponsored for several years is closing on Dec. 15. He said he hopes to organize a replacement program with the county by spring.

The current site is being closed because trucking costs are rising sharply, Zimmerman said, and because of problems with material being dropped off.

“People wanted to dump their junk,” he said.

Knoblauch said there is also interest in the Blissfield community for a collection site.

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